All That and Then Some

MAEVE

ON THE SURFACE, THE problem is Jules. Then again, it's possible that Jules (and the problem I've created around her) is only a smokescreen for the real problem... and that the real problem is me.

This is painfully clear to me suddenly.

I haven't even sampled Jeffry's pot this time, but my brain feels loosened by the hotbox effect he's creating in the shedroom. He's drawing at the table in the corner closest to the space heater, and I'm lying on the cot, combing through all the tangled threads that have bound me up in a straightjacket of indecision.

"The problem is me," I whisper to myself, lips only, no sound. I am astounded by this revelation and not ready to share it yet with Jeffry. He tells me everything, but I've just barely admitted this to myself. The concept is too new, too fragile to undergo his armchair pot-head analysis.

The truth is, what happened with Jules confused me. Or, I was confused already I guess, before that even happened, because I've never been remotely interested in having a relationship. Definitely not a physical one, anyway. And not romantic either. My whole life, there's been this — blank spot — where I think maybe there's supposed to be something. I'm eighteen. Shouldn't I be thinking about sex all the time? Dolling myself up to attract someone's attention? Checking people out in that 'there's someone I'd like to get my body up against' way?

But I don't. I never have.

The fact that I had a blank spot at all didn't occur to me until I found myself sharing a tiny dorm room with Jules, and then, only because she seemed to be brimming with what I lacked. Not that she was interested in me, exactly. Only a little, that once. But I mean, she seemed interested generally. She flirted, she dated, she sent people pictures of her boobs sometimes — I know because I saw her do it. That's how she communicates her sexual intentions, I think.

It was like watching the bizarre mating rituals of some foreign species being around her. And, at first, she assumed I was of the same species. She'd talk to me about the people she was boob-bombing and seem a bit let down when I didn't reply with the appropriate enthusiasm or antics of my own.

Maybe she thought I was jealous of her popularity. Or maybe she just thought I was weird, which, I guess, is closer to the truth. Eventually, she stopped trying to engage me in gossip about who she was into and just started hanging out quietly, kind of mirroring the things I would do. If I were studying, she'd sit on her bed and flip through a textbook. Every once in a while, I'd look up from my notes to find her eyeing me intensely. Like she was trying to learn me instead of her coursework.

To be honest, I liked the change in her. It was like I was slowing her down, steadying her. She was morphing from a species I didn't understand and was a little bit terrified of, to something a lot more comfortable for me to be around.

I don't know if what I felt about her was what people mean by 'being attracted.' I felt this sort of rush of warmth around her. Different from what I feel about Jeffry, which is mostly safe, understood, familiar. With Jules, I seemed to be having a new version of those feelings that I couldn't exactly place.

On my birthday, she left campus, went all the way into town, and came back with a chocolate cupcake (my favourite) and a bundle of white lilies. She left them on my pillow for me to find when I came back from class. There was a note with the gifts that said, "Thinking of you... a whole bunch!"

It was an extravagant gift for a roommate, and the card confused me. Was the 'thinking of me a whole bunch' because it was my birthday? I didn't know. There was something between the card and the tone of the gifts that embarrassed me. A girl like Jules doesn't think about someone like me. Especially not a whole bunch. She obviously didn't realize about my blank spot.